Action Movie Settings

Some notes on settings:
Action films are generally set in cities or other built up urban areas because of how it tends to give a better sense of the speed and action when rushing past buildings, than if you were rushing through the countryside.
Any locations that connote a sense of speed and danger are important and perfect at keeping the action alive during the film.

Conventions of Action

Setting:
Typically, action film openings are introduced in one of two ways:

• As calm and tranquil with very little happening, in an area that seems safe and familiar, so as to provide an equilibrium.
• As more intense with quite a few action scenes and dialogue, so as to immediately tell a story and provide the audience with the kind of action they will be watching for and want more of.

Technical:

• Tend to use a lot of CGI or special effects so that they can show advanced and unusual things, but to also stay up to date and modern. They can also help to create a bigger impact on the audience watching though, as these effects can show realism.
• Lighting is used to show many different things such as danger; being very dark and mysterious, and happiness; being very light and bright.
• Camera shots used show different points from many different perspectives and angles and can be included in ways such as emphasising power, showing importance or focus and showing expression or action/movement.
• Sounds in action films can also be used to create equilibrium; being very peaceful and relaxing, but can then change to create tension; being very loud and sudden.

These features show how technical effects can affect the mood and engagement of audiences while watching the film.

Iconography:
Action films conventionally use a wide range of things for iconography. Some examples of these features are fast cars, guns, the police/army, some form of fighting as well as many other things.

Narrative:
The narrative in action films usually follows the life of a person, or a group of people, who are living a normal life until something changes everything and must go on some form of mission in order to help solve the problem. They typically manage to solve the problem, while picking people up and engaging in chases/fights in the meantime.

Themes:
The themes that conventionally appear in action films involve an injustice that needs to be resolved, So usually the protagonist will go about solving this problem, with themes of violence and sex throughout. A moral justice is typically reached by the end of these action movies.

Characterisation:
Characters in action films typically feature a strong man as the protagonist who may appeal to female members of the audience, as well as a sidekick who may provide comedic elements. There are usually attractive young females who may end up helping or dating the protagonist, and may appeal to the male members of the audience. These means it can help appeal to a wide audience.
They also typically include the policed or army, who may or may not be good and a protagonist who is the main instigator for the trouble that occurs in the plot.

Initial Ideas

So recently we added the idea of having the text message conversation next to the character to give the audience some insight and make them feel a part of it but we have decided that when the fight/chase scene is over and the antagonist has killed a protagonist or normal unknown person, the camera will seem to pull away from the scene as if it's pulling out of a computer screen, to then be an over-shoulder shot of someone watching as the audience this time will see and feel as though the effect of the footage being recorded and shown through CCTV. We will show that this is the person the antagonist is talking to but you never see their face to keep their identity a mystery to the audience and keep them wanting to watch past this opening to find out.

Audience Survey

Survey Responses

We constructed a survey through https://www.surveymonkey.com/ .
We did this to see what certain aspects people enjoy in an action film but also to see if there is a difference in what age enjoys what.

In the survey we asked questions such as "what aspects of a action film do you enjoy most?" We also asked them for their favourite action films and then why, some answers for this question were, "Car chases Shooting Realism Graphics Relatable puts you in the role of the character", "Action-packed, engaging story line & stunts", "They make you think could this all be possible?" "They're intense, funny and in some ways relatable! But also well edited!" We had 30 responses in total and the rest pretty much as the same thing, with the except that some said it was because of certain actors that were in it.

Looking at the screenshots to the left. We asked if people would prefer the protagonist to be female, male, if they didn't mind or other, everyone who selected other said that they didn't mind anyways. The majority of responses said that they didn't mind if the protagonist was a female or male but the second majority was male showing that a big handful enjoy the stereotypical strong male hero in action films. This hasn't effect our production much as we don't mind either however, it has swayed us towards having a female protagonist to try and get people to see females as the protagonist more and not just the stereotypical damsels in distress.

As you can see by the second screenshot, we also asked what they think is the TOP 3 most important things needed/good in the opening to an action film? As we can see by the results, humorous dialogue, a fight scene and intense soundtrack were the three that were voted the most. I was surprised to see that humorous dialogue got the most votes, I thought it would get some but not the most, this has definitely made me think about added a small amount of humorous dialogue into our opening. Looking at individual responses I found that the people who had put that Avengers- Age Of Ultron was one of their favourite action films also voted humorous dialogue and from doing some research on Avengers i know that that is a very good example of an action film with perfectly used humorous dialogue. The other two most voted, a fight scene and the intense soundtrack wasn't a surpise as they are both conventions of an action film. We will be trying to incorporate these into our own film opening to give the audiences what they will want to see.

Production Idea

We thought that an interesting idea for our film opening would be the use of text on the screen to show the messages on a characters phone or otherelectrical device. We've thought about the way this can be used to include the audience as they may feel more included in the conversation, as reading it and knowing the information others may not, makes them feel a part of it. Here is an example of roughly what we were thinking along the lines of...

1st December 2015

Today we discussed a rough plan and general overview for the way we wanted the opening of our film to include and the way we wanted it to look and pan out.

Technical Codes

• Most camera shots are fast paced and there are lots of close-ups to show the expressions on character's faces.
• Establishing shots are important because they show where the is taking place to the audience. Most commonly these shots are done from a high angle, such as a from a helicopter, as many chase scenes include things like this.
• Tracking shots are also a commonly used shot for action sequences and are very effective when used correctly and in the right circumstances. This is because they follow the scene, drawing in and including the audience, making them feel involved in the chase and action overall.
• Sound plays a huge part in what the audience feel and experience during the film. During the action any diagetic are, usually, amplified to make it more exciting.

Example of an establishing shot for a chase

 

Example of a car chase

Iconography for Action Movies

Visual Style:
Often dark colours are used, such as brown or black, to make characters seem more suspicious and mysterious as it can be seen as concealing their identity. However, the main protagonist or hero usually is shown in bright and light colours compared to everything else in the movie, making them stand out from the others and showing their importance. 

Lighting:
Lighting is usually in scene lighting such as natural daylight, searchlights and street lamps. Characters faces are also normally illuminated to make them stand out compared to the surroundings and show their importance.

Props:
Props help us to identify the action genre furthermore because of the way they convey certain things we recognise. For example, guns help to connote danger and excitement at the thought of someone potentially being hurt and a fight breaking out.